Werewolf: the Apocalypse 5th Edition Trailer

Hunters Entertainment, who created Kids on Bikes and The ABCs of D&D has announced, Werewolf 5th Edition for 2021.



HUNTERS ENTERTAINMENT ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP FOR WEREWOLF: THE APOCALYPSE 5TH EDITION

Los Angeles, CA - December 7th 2019. Hunters Entertainment (Kids on Bikes, Outbreak: Undead, Altered Carbon) is excited and proud to announce their partnership with Paradox Interactive, the owners of the World of Darkness (Vampire: The Masquerade, Bloodlines 2, Mage: The Ascension) to develop and publish Werewolf: The Apocalypse 5th Edition, the next evolution of the fan-favorite tabletop roleplaying game through Renegade Games (Scott Pilgrim, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Clank, Lanterns).

Werewolf: The Apocalypse takes place in a fictional version of our Earth: the World of Darkness. In the World of Darkness, werewolves, vampires, magicians, and monsters are all living among us. An entire supernatural world hidden in plain sight. You are one of these monsters, pretending to be human but fighting for survival and supremacy among mysteries and conspiracies that threaten the existence of humanity.

"Werewolf is about how we help/hinder each other to survive against great odds," said Ivan Van Norman, partner and producer of Hunters Entertainment. "This game was the first campaign I ever GM’ed, and I believe its stories are more relevant and impactful now than they’ve ever been - which is why we're excited to bring it back to fans old and new."

Players will play as Garou, individuals born of two worlds, the material and the Umbra (spirit world), who can shapeshift into wolves at will. In Werewolf: The Apocalypse the world, Gaia, is dying. After many generations, the Garou - Gaia’s chosen warriors and defenders - are divided on how to save the planet, their spiritual mother. Attacked by outside forces and plagued by infighting, each Garou tribe shares different ideologies and goals, which have - up to this point - all failed them in their ultimate goal, to rescue a dying Gaia.

Set to release in 2021, the new edition of Werewolf: The Apocalypse has been long anticipated by fans and was teased at PDX Con in Berlin by the World of Darkness team.

"The story of the Garou has never been more relevant than it is today, which means Werewolf has an important role in the unique, global, transmedia setting we are building with the World of Darkness. In Hunters Entertainment we have a partner who clearly shares our passion for The Apocalypse," said Sean Greaney, Brand Manager for World of Darkness at Paradox Interactive. "We were particularly impressed by their creative vision and ability, and so we are very happy to be partnering with them in bringing this newest chapter of Werewolf to the world."

Mechanically, the game is set to share a lot of similarities with the recent release of Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition but will have a lot of elements that make it unique.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse 5th Edition will be marketed and distributed by Renegade Games, and will be available in retail stores internationally and online.

 

[zhivik]

I feel more comfortable in a fantasy world of D&D, or Exalted, where natural laws are different, and this allows pokemon-like creatures with superpowers. But not works set in our real life whose point of view about supernatural is too different from mine. I don't like to see in the same level a saint missionary who help people to build a new hospital than a blackafrican shaman who kills albines to use their body parts for ritual magic. (killing albines in Africa for magic ritual is a real tragedy, but the book of the Dreamspeakers will not tell this).

About W:tA I don't like the false dillema about to choose between modern technology or to save mother Nature. I hate that Malthusian naughty word about there are too much overpopulation, when this isn't not the true problem. W:tA isn't about saving the Nature for the future of the next generations but annoying ecocatratrophism, when mankind appears as a cancer for the planet. If we really want to save the nature then we have to notice the true root of the troubles is being controlled by people who don't suffer the consecuences of their mistakes because we are going who will pay the broken plates.

I hate when White Wolf's fiction is used report against fanaticism to warn us against following those steps toward the dark side of the Force but they are always forgetting a very important lesson: the respect for the human dignity. Without this the rebell against authority later becomes a new tyrant.

Well, the very premise of the World of Darkness is that it is a world that resembles ours but much darker. No one claims the World of Darkness is our world, it is just an imaginary version of it. Regarding the different point of view - you can't expect everyone to have your point of view, we are different people, after all.

I am with you on the often binary nature of the Garou in Apocalypse, though, which is why I prefer Forsaken over it. The portrayal of civilisation and technology as always harming nature is too one-sided. There can be some fun to get out of your comfort zone and play fanatics on occasion, but my problem with Apocalypse is that it is the only thing it offers. Sure, there are Garou tribes with different nuances, but more often than not, the Garou are bigots and their own actions have often led to more misery than the good they reportedly were trying to achieve.

Meanwhile, the Forsaken offers a lot more depth and nuance - a more sandbox approach, so to say. It also adopts the concept that nature is neither good nor bad (unlike Apocalypse, where nature is always good). The Forsaken care much more about harmony in whatever form it appears than the Garou, for whom harmony is most often than not associated with nature's dominance.

But to each their own. I think it is clear that I am not very keen on a new Apocalypse edition, as I am very happy with the Forsaken line. I will take a look for sure, but my decision will be based on how fun it is to play the game, not what implications it might have on real-world politics.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I like some ideas from Forsaken, and I am used to imagine mash-up mixing WoD and CoD, but better in a fantasy reality counterpart, something like Ravenloft, but also because I can add a lot of monster more. Other idea is metis can be created by special rituals using kindred voluntaries, but they become sterile.

Other idea is garous can live in some horizont realms/demiplanes, where industrial revolution hasn't arrived yet, until the first visits by the void engineerers.

 

[Staffan]

The WoD Cosmology is Weaver-Wyrd-Wyrm, an evolution of Chaos vs Law by Michale Moorcock's work, and this is a variant of the classic manicheism good vs evil. This is wrong. The idea of a cosmic balance between light and dark sides of the Force as ying and yang is wrong.

I think you're misunderstanding what the "healthy" universe as portrayed by Werewolf/Mage (the OWOD games that gets the most into this kind of thing) would look like.

The Wyld is the force of unbridled creation. The Weaver is the force of shaping things and keeping them controlled. And the Wyrm is the force that destroys and makes room for new things. They are essentially the same forces as the Fates of classic mythology: Clotho spins the thread of life, Lachesis measures it out, and Atropos cuts it.

The Wyld is not "good". The Weaver is not "evil". The Wyrm is not normally evil either. But the forces involved have gone out of balance. This has lead to a world that is seemingly in stasis, and turned the Wyrm into a force of corruption instead of purification. If the Wyld had been ascendant, the world would instead have been moving toward formless chaos, which would not have been a good thing either.

Also, while the Garou are the protagonists of Werewolf stories, that does not make them heroes. The original idea behind the World of Darkness games was that this was a game where you play monsters. The Garou are not automatically in the right. They have done a lot of horrible things in the past - culling humanity, nearly wiping other changing breeds out of existence, warfare between different tribes, and so on. That thing where humans are reduced to blubbering messes of terror when they see a Crinos-form Garou? That's not due to some supernatural aura, that's due to genetic memory of the massacres Garou perpetrated upon humanity. The eco-terrorist angle favored by many Garou is probably a dead end, if nothing else because they don't have the numbers or power to win by force. But it makes them feel good, so that's what they do, instead of trying more political solutions. All in all, the Garou are no less monstrous than the Kindred, but they probably feel better about it.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

This is not about a group playing to be the bad guys. I don't mind the lore too much because I can change how I want, for example using a fantasy world, mixing Kult: lost divinity and even mason lodges controlled by vampires to manipulate us. And I am going to retcon the serpent brotherhood, and now it is a elite secret society as a version of the "skull & bones" for future fomorians, the boy-scout ersatz was only the first step for youngest potential candidates.

My complain about W:tA is because it is not only dark urban fantasy, but the ecocatastrophism in its pages, where modern civilitation appears as enemy or a pain in the neck of Mother Nature, Gaia. This isn't a call of responsability abut take care the planet for the future generations, but lack of faith in mankind ourself. We have to be responsible, but we still can save the planet. Now we know the bioregenation, growing plants to clean pollution, or using special worms what can eat plastic. We have to take care with the false prophets, wolves with sheep's clothing, of the ecology who want to sell us their snake oil, false remedies, for example higher taxes, or a global goverment controlling all the industry.

* Could anybody suggest a name for a Russian or Chinese "brother" of Pentex?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

With respect - it is FICTIONAL.

Have you not noticed that these games have... werewolves, vampires, and stuff? You know, it is incorrect to say those things exist... but it is a game.

D&D... it has gods for clerics to worship... those are wrong, too, right? I mean, they don't reflect our real world.

You don't have to like what WW does. But to say an entirely fictional metaphysical system is wrong is kind of like saying the image for the Enterprise NCC-1701-D is wrong. It isn't right or wrong - it is made up!

Of course fictional things can be wrong. Depends on what they’re trying to say, exactly. For instance, if the point is that it is wrong to depict the natural state of the world as balanced between good and evil, that’s a valid point regardless of you or I or anyone else disagreeing with it.

The message of a piece of art is an act with moral weight. It can be considered right or wrong just like any other expression.

 

[Staffan]

My complain about W:tA is because it is not only dark urban fantasy, but the ecocatastrophism in its pages, where modern civilitation appears as enemy or a pain in the neck of Mother Nature, Gaia. This isn't a call of responsability abut take care the planet for the future generations, but lack of faith in mankind ourself. We have to be responsible, but we still can save the planet. Now we know the bioregenation, growing plants to clean pollution, or using special worms what can eat plastic. We have to take care with the false prophets, wolves with sheep's clothing, of the ecology who want to sell us their snake oil, false remedies, for example higher taxes, or a global goverment controlling all the industry.

Modern civilization is screwing the planet over. We're overfishing the seas, flooding the atmosphere with CO2, releasing toxic chemicals, and all sorts of other bad things. Fixing this will require lots of systemic change. Exactly what sort of change can be debated, and due to the politics ban here this is not the place to do it, but pretty much everyone can see that the current trajectory is heading off a cliff.

In the real world, this process is primarily driven by greed. Pipelines are built by corporations seeking to maximize profit, and who see the environmental issues as either no big deal or as acceptable losses. In the World of Darkness, this is helped along by supernatural forces who want to corrupt nature for the lulz.

A not-insignificant number of Garou believe that the solution is to murderize humans until they're at a manageable number again. These are basically the folks who seriously believe that Thanos was right. Others believe in more political solutions.

 

[Staffan]

Of course fictional things can be wrong. Depends on what they’re trying to say, exactly. For instance, if the point is that it is wrong to depict the natural state of the world as balanced between good and evil, that’s a valid point regardless of you or I or anyone else disagreeing with it.

Of course, in the idealized balanced state, neither the Wyld, the Weaver, or the Wyrm are good or evil. They just are. The evil comes from their imbalance.

 

[Umbran]

My complain about W:tA is because it is not only dark urban fantasy, but the ecocatastrophism in its pages, where modern civilitation appears as enemy or a pain in the neck of Mother Nature, Gaia. This isn't a call of responsability abut take care the planet for the future generations, but lack of faith in mankind ourself. We have to be responsible, but we still can save the planet.

And, if and when we actually get around to doing that, the WoD catastrophism will seem quaint and out-of-date, and they'll have to restructure their game, or leave it as a period piece.

Until that time, though, the form does seem fairly apt.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

In the lore the Weaver was the responsable Wyrm became mad, or at least some legends tell this.

Sorry, but I hate when I am reading fiction and some author tries me to feel guilty because something horrible has haspened in the world. That is not to try to open my eyes, but emotional manipulation. Not only it bothers me, it may be dangerous.

I can read fiction where some characters do horrible things, but I don't like works with a negative point of view about us. We have to be responsible, we could be cause for shame for the future generations, but we also have the great potential to do awesome things. The key of the matter is to defend the right moral values, not only targeting anybody like the villain of the movie.

And I am missing White Wolf authors are forgetting our society has to recover the respect for the human dignity to not become monsters and fall in the dark side of the force. When they report some historical facts, I miss they don't report other things.

* What do you thing about a Vampire sourcebook telling Lasombra started Cristero War in Mexico to terminate the greatest patrons of vampire-hunters? Has WoD told anything about the war (really a brutal genocide) in la Vendée? It happened some years after the French Terror.

 

[MGibster]

What do you thing about a Vampire sourcebook telling Lasombra started Cristero War in Mexico to terminate the greatest patrons of vampire-hunters? Has WoD told anything about the war (really a brutal genocide) in la Vendée? It happened some years after the French Terror.

To be perfectly honest with you I much prefer to have humans responsible for most of the horrible stuff in the world. I don't mind in fiction when vampires or other supernatural critters take advantage of situations like the Cristero War or World War II, but it's humans who were driving things.

And so far as World of Darkness goes I've always thought that the various supernatural entities might think they control humanity but they really don't. They might nudge it in a few places but at the end of the day they've got the tiger by the tail and can't really let go.